DOTHAN, Alabama -- Dale County Sheriff Wally Olson said hostage-taker Jimmy Lee Dykes began planning the kidnapping weeks before he boarded the school bus on Jan. 29 in Midland City.

Olson spoke about the seven-day hostage situation where then 5-year-old Ethan was taken from his school bus and the bus driver shot and killed at the regular meeting of the Kiwanis Club of Dothan on Tuesday, according to a Dothan Eagle report.

Olson said Dykes began speaking with bus driver Charles Poland weeks prior. Dykes had cleared a path on his property to allow the school bus to turn around.

“His plan was he befriended Mr. Poland. Mr. Poland really thought Mr. Dykes was helping him by creating that area to turn the bus around, but he did that for a reason,” Olson said in the meeting, according to the Dothan Eagle. “He’d been well into building that bunker for over a year. It was pretty well planned.”

Dykes called 911 shortly after kidnapping Ethan, Olson said. Police were told to communicate with him through a PVC pipe that protruded from the bunker. The pipe and the bunker contained an improvised explosive device.